Emulate the Commodore 64

Run Commodore software on your modern-day PC.

Maybe you don’t want to wait until the end of an eBay auction, or perhaps the shoggoth that shambles around your attic still hasn’t left. Whatever the case, running a real Commodore 64 [Hack #57] didn’t quite do it for you. No matter—you can emulate the Commodore 64, and the programs you run will be none the wiser. There are plenty of emulators that run this classic system perfectly, bringing back the classics you loved and introducing some you’ve never seen before. You can find emulators for just about any platform you can think of.

Windows

Windows users have plenty of Commodore 64 emulators to choose from, and many of these are listed at Zophar’s Domain (http://www.zophar.net/c64.html). CCS64 (http://www.computerbrains.com/ccs64/) is a popular and capable shareware ($30) emulator that is well-worth checking out. When you launch it for the first time, you’ll probably click randomly like a wild monkey trying to find either the emulator options or a menu that lets you load a disk image—don’t worry, you’re just looking in the wrong place. To get to either the emulator options or to load a disk image, press F9 to enter the emulator menu. It has a delightful retro-64 feel, as shown in Figure 5-12.